philadelphia
awards: governors trophy, special achievement unusual excellence and special achievement horticulture
size: 100m2
photography: andy sturgeon
There is a debate over whether the English artist Ben Nicholson was primarily a painter or sculptor as much of his 3-dimensional work was executed with only subtle relief. This garden speculates on what he would have produced had he explored landscape design and explodes and expands that subtle relief into a fully 3- dimensional piece where sculpture becomes structure and even architecture to frame vignettes of the garden like paintings in a gallery.
Focusing on his iconic work, the Nicholson Wall at Sutton Place, the wider garden echoes his geometric shapes and interlocking planes which are represented here in both the ground plane and vertical form and frame the sculpture. Also evident are his influences: The grid based paintings of his acquaintance Piet Mondrian and the cubist period of his friend Pablo Picasso, the sculpture of his second wife Barbara Hepworth and his association with Modernism.
